Social Media Newsfeed: Spotify Updates | Foursquare Events

Spotify’s New Discovery Features Free Listeners from Judgmental Friends (SocialTimes)
Listening to music with your friends on Spotify is fun, until someone mocks your love for Metallica. The social music service shared two important updates on Thursday. USA Today Spotify has added a “follow” button that will let its users follow artists, journalists and other influencers. In addition to the new “follow” tab, Spotify is adding a “discover” tab that will lead to recommendations based on your listening history. Mashable The new features — which will start rolling out in January — are the most significant product upgrades that have hit Spotify since the service launched in 2008. Check out this video to get a look at what the company wants to do. CNET It turns out that Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Sean Parker, one of the founders of file-sharing service Napster, share a love of Spotify, and Ulrich announced that Metallica is now offering its catalog on Spotify. Besides offering testimonials about how much they enjoy using Spotify’s service, the two shared their experiences of their now famous confrontation when Ulrich declared war on Napster more than a decade ago, going as far as filing a lawsuit against the pioneering peer-to-peer service. Reuters Spotify now has 20 million active users worldwide, up 33 percent in less than six months. The company counts five million people among paying subscribers, a 25 percent increase during the same time period.

Foursquare Lets Businesses Alert Users to Events (SocialTimes)
Businesses can now include event listings in their Foursquare profiles. The location-based social network will display the events to users when they search for nearby venues, check in and view previous check-ins. TechCrunch This is a pretty huge step toward helping you find new places to go and tell your friends about why you go there without doing any work. The cool part about this, which is already available for things like movies, is that you can check in to the actual event at the venue. This records what you’re doing as well as where you are. VentureBeat “The goal of our whole suite of business tools is to give business owners better ways to communicate with customers when they’re nearby,” a Foursquare spokesperson told VentureBeat. “We think of local updates, specials, etc. as a sort of digital chalkboard — a mobile version of the sandwich boards businesses often put out on the sidewalk — and today’s [Thursday’s] launch just enables businesses to share even more information with potential customers via Foursquare.”

Facebook Adds App Center Sections to Search Results (AllFacebook)
Facebook continued its push to back application developers and promote usage of its app center by including categories from app center in its search results, where applicable. Sister blog Inside Facebook reported on the addition, noting that it emerged just a few weeks after the social network added keyword search to app center.

Google+ Launches Groups Feature, Claims 500 Million Members (SocialTimes)
Google has begun rolling out a preview of a Google+ groups feature, allowing users to form public and private groups centered around a topic or brand, according to a blog post written by Google vice president Vic Gundotra. Using a Communities button on the menu along the left side of the page in Google+, users can form groups or search by category for groups they may want to join. Group users can participate in events or video-chat Hangouts.

$10,000 Twitter Giveaway for Teachers from Skype Santa (AllTwitter)
“Skype Santa” is giving away $10,000 in Microsoft products to the teacher who tweets the most creative contest entry. Skype announced this holiday offer on its website as a way of showing its continued support to “further education experiences through our Skype in the classroom program.”

YouTube to Pay YouTubers to Collaborate in NextUp Competition (SocialTimes)
YouTube has relaunched NextUp, and this time it’s putting an emphasis on collaborations. Creators can let YouTube know who they’d like to collaborate with, and the top 30 channels will receive money, production gear, training and more.

How to Connect Your Google+ Account to Your Online Writings (GalleyCat)
Perfect Market chief revenue officer Tim Ruder has helped writers at media companies around the country create a stronger online footprint. At the AllFacebook Marketing Conference this week, he shared a crucial piece of intelligence for writers: your Google+ profile can help your online writings get noticed.

Netflix Warned About Possible SEC Action Over Facebook Post (SocialTimes)
Netflix disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday that the commission had warned the company and CEO Reed Hastings that it may bring a civil case against related to disclosures Hastings made about the state of the company’s business on his Facebook page. The SEC warned Netflix in a letter Wednesday that its social media strategy may put it afoul of regulations governing fair disclosure of financial information.

Three Slightly Crazy Ideas for Twitter to Monetize Television (LostRemote)
The connection between Twitter and TV ratings remains murky and indirect, which makes monetization a challenge. But what if Twitter closed that loop while opening up a new world of advertising? What if it became a true, connected “interactive layer” across television?

Subscribe to Adweek

Featured Courses

Storytelling for Media ProfessionalsUse smart storytelling to build your brandLearn more >Digital Media Planning and BuyingBuild the foundation for successful media planning in a constantly evolving marketLearn more >Develop a Freelance Writing CareerBuild a thriving career as a freelancerLearn more >Digital Editorial ProductionMaster content management systems and the user experienceLearn more >See more Courses >